Joe Raffa - Chef of Oyamel

Don’t question the numbers, grasshopper

How many servings of grasshopper tacos would you guess are sold daily at Oyamel? “As many as 40,” says Joe Raffa, executive chef of the recently opened Mexican restaurant in Gallery Place. “And at least 20.”

Don’t question those figures. Before he became a chef, Raffa spent nine years at the U.S. Government Accountability Office. He knows his numbers.

Oyamel, originally located in Arlington, doesn’t serve grasshopper tacos as a gimmick, he says, although he agrees that the first time anyone orders
them, it’s probably on a dare.

“We are trying to do a very traditional regional cuisine. In Oaxaca, they’re an essential part of the diet. They’re low in fat, high in protein and very inexpensive. They’re also a way for people to make money: They catch them and sell them.” Raffa’s supply comes from a distributor in Los Angeles who gets them from commercial farms in the Oaxaca region of Mexico.

So what takes a man from government accounting to a restaurant kitchen? “There was talk about reducing the size of the agency. I was among the last group of people hired. So if they had been required to let people go, I would have been one of the first. Instead of waiting, I got out in front of the parade.”

Until then, it had never occurred to him that cooking could become a profession. He just loved doing it. He began cooking at 12 while living in Hawaii, where he and his mother moved when he was 4. (He’s originally from California.) “I wanted to make dinner for mom when she came home at night. So I started looking for recipes that we had the ingredients for in the
house.”

He used “The Redbook Cookbook,” by the women’s magazine. “That was one big, heavy book.” His mom managed the condominium building they
lived in, so when he came across an ingredient they didn’t have, “I’d go downstairs and say, ‘Mom, I need money.’” Then he’d go across the street to a mini-mall to pick up his goods.

Raffa says that is really all he can remember of his time there. But he feels passionate about the place he grew up.

Asked how he spends time off these days, he says he has grandiose travel plans but usually ends up going to Hawaii. “I really do want to go to Mexico. But it’s hard for me. I get so homesick.” So he and his wife travel back to Hawaii whenever they can, visiting the different islands.

“My wife had big ambitions to see flowing lava,” he says. So they took a hiking trip to Kilauea Volcano. “It was raining sideways, and we asked where we could go to see lava closest to the road. Two-and-a-half hours in that direction, they said. A five-hour round trip! But we found where the lava was cooking up. It was awesome! I just love my home,” he says, and sighs.

He met his wife, Mary, while in his senior year at American University. He was majoring in international studies. She was in the same program and the same dormitory. “I won my wife cooking,” he says with a massive grin. Nearly everyone else had gone home for Thanksgiving, so Raffa cooked Cornish hens and stuffing. “To hear her tell it now, this was the moment she realized we were destined to be.” She works at the nonprofit MITRE Corp., which manages federally funded research and development centers. She’s not a cook, though she makes a mean pecan pie, he says.

When it came for Raffa to leave his government job and decide what to do next, she told him that if he wanted to see if he was serious about cooking, he should first take some classes. “I went on this weeklong course, had an absolute ball. I was excited, exhilarated.”

He followed a full-time training course at L’Academie de Cuisine’s professional school in Gaithersburg with stints at Equinox and Morrison-Clark Inn. Then came time as a sous chef at Café Atlántico before he left to become chef for over five years at Majestic Cafe in Alexandria. A change of ownership there and plans to move Oyamel from its original spot in Crystal City brought him to its new 7th Street location. After putting in 90- to 100-hour weeks at Majestic Cafe, he hopes to take more time off once Oyamel has been properly established.

“Right now I’m struggling to make the restaurant come right,” he says. “Openings are tough. They need real energy, real attention.” They recently opened for lunch and added brunch on Saturdays and Sundays.

There are plenty of authentic Mexican dishes on the menu less challenging than grasshopper tacos. The restaurant encourages ordering numerous little dishes of Mexican street food called Antojitos, to make up a shared feast.

And then there’s the restaurant’s signature drink, which probably makes the most effective use of the foams that now froth over so many contemporary
dish constructions. A salt “air” is squirted like shaving cream over the top of the margaritas so there’s always just the right amount of that essential saline snap, down to the last drop of the cocktail.

It’s a clue to the fact that the restaurant’s owner is José Andrés, whose Café Atlántico is the site of the experimental minibar and one of Washington’s best chances to discover what can happen when scientific techniques are
applied to food preparation.

Raffa talks of the emotional attachment he still feels for Café Atlántico. “I still have such a high regard for Kats [chef Katsuya Fukushima] and his staff.”

While talking, Raffa bubbles with enthusiasm, seeming always on the edge of exploding with mirth. In fact, he does when asked if he has any children. “We can’t afford more than one of me!”

But he does have two godsons. One day, they were driving in the car with his wife, “and one says, ‘Mary, how come you don’t have kids?’ And the other says, ‘Joe would have to share his toys!’” Toys? “Oh, I just have some G.I.
Joes. Actually, quite a few. And some lightsabers.” Raffa grins a little sheepishly. “My sisters-in-law gave them to me for Christmas. Really, really cool.”

Oyamel (202 628 1005; http://www.oyamel.com) is located at 401 7th St. NW. Antojitos cost from $4 to $11.

This article by Julia Watson first appeared in the NorthWest Current.